Three centuries after its discovery, Brazil had a population of more
than one million. If the people were spread out evenly over the land
that Lisbon claimed was hers, each individual would have two or three
square kilometers.

There were people living along the coast from Marajó Island down to
the Chuí, as well as along both shores of the Amazon, from its mouth up
to Tabatinga and the Javari River. Along its tributaries in this basin, settlements were erected close to harbors, preferably near the muddy water
streams. The Rio Negro settlements were different because concerns
about the border pushed natural expansion farther inward, up the Madeira, Tapajós, and Tocantins Rivers, which flow from Goiás and
Mato Grosso. Beginning at Piauí, the coastal line had as parallels one or
more interior lines of settlements on the banks of rivers and on the
plateaus along the Parnaíba, the São Francisco, and the Paraná, as well as
in the regions between these rivers. These lines were constantly interrupted. It would be better to call them points along which lines could be
drawn.

By observing settlers' geographic distribution, one can see two easily
distinguishable trends. Spontaneous settlement tended toward continuity and sought the periphery in the west, north, and south. The voluntary
trend, which was determined by governmental measures and by the desire for land or strategic advantage, came out scattered and disconnected.
It started on the periphery and took off in opposite directions. In the gold

Print this page

While we understand printed pages are helpful to our users, this limitation is necessary
to help protect our publishers' copyrighted material and prevent its unlawful distribution.
We are sorry for any inconvenience.